L.A.P.D. Arrest “Grim Sleeper” Suspect

In the late 1980s and then again in the early aughts, the Los Angeles netherworld was plagued by a series of killings by someone known as the Grim Sleeper. (Sleeper, because of the sabbatical, and grim, because of the murdering.) Finally, on Wednesday, following an exhaustive DNA search of California’s prisons, police arrested Lonnie David Franklin Jr., a 57-year-old convicted felon whose DNA allegedly matches that of an incarcerated relative and also that of the serial killer who murdered and sexually assaulted 10 women, many of them prostitutes. The suspect’s neighbors, as neighbors of suspected murderers always seem to be, were surprised. “He’s a good mechanic, worked out of his garage. I’ve been here since 1976—that’s how long I’ve known him. I’m not pretty shocked, I’m all the way shocked,” one told The Los Angeles Times. According to ABC News, “Franklin will be charged with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, making him eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole.”